Washington Redskins Barry Cofield gives Jay Gruden high marks

Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden could lead the team to a nice bounce-back season, but it goes beyond the mere fact that moving on from Mike Shanahan and the drama last year will be a welcome change for the Redskins. Robert Griffin III looks ready to bounce back, especially with another big weapon at his disposal in DeSean Jackson, and the Redskins defense will be better next year. Even though they didn’t make enough upgrades in the secondary, they did sign disruptive DE Jason Hatcher, and young cornerback David Amerson is a possible breakout player.

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Even so, Gruden is still bringing a positive aura to the Redskins organization, and Redskins veteran nose tackle Barry Cofield gave Gruden the highest marks possible based on his head coach’s performance through the first four days of camp. He told the NFL Network’s Jeff Darlington, “He’s a coach whose presence is felt and he doesn’t need to micromanage … First four days, I give him an A-plus.”

Cofield added that he believes the Redskins have “a lot” of talent, and that Gruden is doing a great job of making sure his players are physical but not being overworked. I wonder if this insinuates that Shanahan simply drove his players to exhaustion on the practice field by hiking up practice hours unnecessarily, but I guess that’s just me briefly stirring the pot in my head. It’s always important never to read into way-too-early signs of a head coach, but it’s good to hear that Cofield gives his head coach a whopping “A+”.